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Topic: The rooster that makes me laugh!!! (Read 7564 times)

A tale to tell, about Roquefort, our beautiful great white rooster, the king of his chickenyards. We have poor ol' Antonio, he is the beauty of a Rhode Island Red, he is a lesser important king, but he commands a very small group of the girls.

I watch Roquefort, time and time again, I spend alot of time out the back, working, watching, listening, that is my gig. As you saw Roquefort is a very noticeable bird, his white colour really stands out amongst the brown of the earth, the green of the grass and weeds, and the dark colour of most of the hens. He catches my attention all the time as he performs the funniest antics.

He is a very determined ol' fellow, with no clue of his age, we have had him two years, and who knows how old he was before that, but a magnificent dude he is. I watch him start from one side of the chicken yard. He has his eye on a particular hen, she sees him coming and she runs like the dickens. Now I can tell you when chickens want to, they can run, and man can they run fast. I would venture that they can run faster than a horse. Well, Roquefort has one thing on his mind, and nothing will deter him. This hen is running for her life, I am sure that she is sure that she believes from the very bottom of her soul, that she is gonna be done right in by the way that she runs. He is still running after her, finally, because of his size and determination he catches up to her, the game is over. She finally stops, she has run out of steam. Life carries on. Roquefort chases after Antonio with the same determination, from one side of the property to another when he has it in his mind that Antonio might be after one of his girls, Roquefort thinks all the hens are his.

Roquetfort, rooster, his breed, no clue

Antonio, the Rhode Island Red rooster

Creakity Creak, the Banty rooster

Now our little banty rooster is a different sort. He is a pretty dude, he has that rose comb (that is what they call that double looking comb I believe) and he has super fluffy feathers on the side of his head. His eyes are red, as is the surround skin around his eyes, it gives him a rather eerie look, he is very friendly and is a cutie pie. He is what I would call a gentleman. I watch him too, he never chases the girls. He doesn't have to. He always calls them over to show them a little bit of a bug or a worm that he has found. He makes that rooster sound that they make when they are getting food for their girls, they always gladly come over to get that yummy little treat. After she has eaten this offering, she moves away and he gives her some attention. They never run away from him. A gentleman he is.

The antics in the chickenyards are some of the most interesting things to behold, they keep you always interested with watching, listening and seeing a new event every time you turn your back. Beautiful and most wonderful day, this is yours to do with what you will. Cindi

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There are strange things done in the midnight sun by the men who moil for gold. The Arctic trails have their secret tales that would make your blood run cold. The Northern Lights have seen queer sights, but the queerest they ever did see, what the night on the marge of Lake Lebarge, I cremated Sam McGee. Robert Service

JP, yep, the rooster had his way, the hens always shake their feathers like the dickens, guess they feel kind of ruffled up.

Rocky racoon, by the light of the moon..........have this most wonderful and beautiful day as yours, and everyone else too, off to get into the sun.....Cindi

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There are strange things done in the midnight sun by the men who moil for gold. The Arctic trails have their secret tales that would make your blood run cold. The Northern Lights have seen queer sights, but the queerest they ever did see, what the night on the marge of Lake Lebarge, I cremated Sam McGee. Robert Service

Hi, Cindi!!! Love the pics and your banty sounds like my RIR rooster, Sue P. (don't ask, the boys love Johnny Cash-hence "A Boy Named Sue" was born.) He also is a hand-me-down rooster and so much the gentleman. He does the "hey, I have some food" chuckle for his hens and the fat ladies flock to him! Then he does a little dance, the hen squats down, he lightly steps on, takes forever to get balanced and do the deed, steps politely down and she does a little shake. No chasing, just a little dinner, a little dance, slow, methodical lovemaking and He is King! Gotta love him! He takes such good care of his girls and they follow him around like puppies. If one gets out of his sight he looks for her and coaxes her back in...much too dignified to run, he is. Like a courtly, southern gentleman with a bevy of beautiful fat ladies at his beck and call....like Foghorn Leghorn!

Cindi, on the Backyard Chicken forum we recently had a thread about how many people have a chair by the henhouse. Do you? I was surprised how many did and that I wasn't the only one! Now the boys (teenagers) will say, "Let's sit out and watch the chickens!" We live a very sweet, unhurried existence in these old mountains! I wish I had high-speed so I could post pics...I always love looking at folks' pics. :)

Angi, now that is interesting and cool. He has 4 banty hens that are laying eggs and I am going to incubate them soon, been gathering them. There is another banty hen that he was the sire, (is that what they are called in chicky language, hee, hee) to. She is pretty, she looks like the other bantys except that she has the fluffy neck feathers and a darker head. Her eggs are light beige though. I know she was hatched from him because of the neck. The other banties were hatched out from another banty rooster we had, they look just like him, sleek, we don't have him anymore.

It is funny, this banty rooster is quite friendly as is his 1/2 daughter. The other three banty hens are freaks!!! I have never seen more skittery birds and I really am not impressed with them, they bug me because they are so skittery.

Whoppo is going to the pot. His aggression is out of control, 100%, I thought his manners were improving, but I had four fights with him last night, big ones. He has bit me on the back of my calf four times in the past couple days and last night was the last straw. The duck bite/pinch, whatever you want to call it is not so bad, it is the body language he displays.

I wrested him down to the ground 4 times last night and put his head on the ground and pinched the top of his head. When I let him up I walked away backwards. Nope, he wasn't gonna take that. He came flying at me backwards. You probably know what I am talking about, it is kind of hard to describe.

What he does is he comes at me with his wings flared straight out and kind of leaps in the air at me with his feet in the air too. It looks like he is gonna claw me, they have those freaking sharp big claws on the feet. I am too smart and quick for him. This is when I caught him each time and put him on the ground. I am not afraid of him. But I think that I just don't want to start to have fights with him, he does not win and I do not win and it is really really annoying. Thank the stars above these breed of duck hiss and they are so loud, you can hear them coming a mile away. And when he sees me, all the way across the chickenyard, he even comes over, hissing away. He follows me everywhere hissing, so I keep a really close eye on that and I am kind of sick and tired of it. It seems that he is more aggressive in the evenings, he is just annoying otherwise. Goodbye Whoppo, it was not nice knowin' ya.

I keep remembering Big Boy, our other Muscovy drake. Now that was one nice bird. So I know how well behaved and friendly a Muscovy drake can be. He was very tame and even would feed from your hand.

We are going to let my Neice raise one of the drakes from these hatchings to be very calm and nice. That is why Big Boy was so nice, she babied him and took such good care of him, and let me tell you it paid off. He was a wonderful drake, sired the most beautiful babies and a pleasure to have around. Eeks, when I compare him to Whoppo, it makes my head spin around. Have this most wonderful and beautiful day as yours, greatest of days to us all, Cindi

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There are strange things done in the midnight sun by the men who moil for gold. The Arctic trails have their secret tales that would make your blood run cold. The Northern Lights have seen queer sights, but the queerest they ever did see, what the night on the marge of Lake Lebarge, I cremated Sam McGee. Robert Service

What a beautiful picture you have painted in my mind's eye, I would love to be in that place, in those ol' mountains. I live on 5 acres, we have acreage surrounding us, but I would love to live where there is very little population, you are a fortunate soul, sounds like you are fairly isolated, that is beautiful. I wish that you had the capacity to post pictures too, I really do.

Yep, I have chairs, rocks, logs, milk crates, all manner of things around here that I use to sit on. But particularly, a couple of chairs around the hen yards. I love to sit and watch and listen to it all. Infront of my apiary I have a massive pile of rocks that I have been gathering around my property from garden making. It has numerous perfect sitting rocks, so I always have a great chair there from whatever angle I so chose to look from.

Our banty rooster is just like yours, yes a gentleman and the act of mating is very different from the rude act of mating of our larger roosters. I feel sorry for the hens, they are just plain simply users of these girls, hee, hee. The banty, well, another story for sure, he is quite the dude to watch, and he impresses me with his behaviour. Beautiful and most wonderful day, lovin' our lives. Cindi

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There are strange things done in the midnight sun by the men who moil for gold. The Arctic trails have their secret tales that would make your blood run cold. The Northern Lights have seen queer sights, but the queerest they ever did see, what the night on the marge of Lake Lebarge, I cremated Sam McGee. Robert Service

JP, ha, how would I know that you would be the first to want to come over for dinner. Sorry we eat dinner in the 5th dimension. There is no time, just that strange dimension. Sorry, can't help ya there, hee, hee. Go and get a Muscovy duck, get your Wife to check out where she can buy one, you gotta try this breed JP, I know that you are a duck lover and there is nothing like this breed for the beautiful "red" (they call it red, no clue why) meat, and the gravy that goes with it. Man oh man. I cooked a duck soup the other day, using the broth and meat that came off the bones when I brewed it all day, oh to die for!!!! Oh no, now I am getting really bad with teasing you. Awe, JP, I am so sorry, hee, hee (not), and hopin' your mouth is droolin'. Beauty. Wonderful day. Cindi

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There are strange things done in the midnight sun by the men who moil for gold. The Arctic trails have their secret tales that would make your blood run cold. The Northern Lights have seen queer sights, but the queerest they ever did see, what the night on the marge of Lake Lebarge, I cremated Sam McGee. Robert Service

Ahhh Poor Whappo. I wish I could send you some eggs from my crew. I have 13 babies from 1 month to 3 months old. and 3 of them are chocolate ripple very pritty that color is. I also have 4 out of 5 hens sitting on eggs only one is sitting on less then 13 eggs. I wish that last hen would start sitting. So soon we will have an infestation of babies. A few have been sitting for 2 weeks. I think one has been for 3 weeks. We will find out when there is babies. lol. I can not wait to try one of the extra drakes and I have some of my CSA clients wanting to try it as well. I just wish I could tell the males apart at an earlier age.

Angi, never mind, I think I will send Whoppo to JP via air mail, this dude is so nasty he would have that will to live and then JP could deal with him, hee, hee.

Angi you got babies almost comin' out your ears, yeah!!!! If we were to keep one of Whoppo's progeny for a drake for our stock for breeding, is there a chance that that drake would be a nasty ol' puke like Whoppo? I am kind of thinking that it is like all genetics, these genes are passed on.

I belong to a forum called the Canadian Egg Swappers. There are people on their all the time that have hatching eggs for sale. I think that I will hatch out some eggs from somewhere else. But I am pretty worried about more nasty drakes. This dude is really becoming out of supreme control really fast. I am actually getting rather intimidated by him, and that is not me. He is after me for sure, and it is just a matter of time that he is gonna get me a good one and that ain't gonna happen.

Angi, tell me a little more about this "flogging" thing that I remember you talking about. I was telling my Sister about it yesterday and I just didn't have enough information to give her. It is interesting to me to understand these things. Describe this act fully for me.

It sounds like the male flies onto your back or something and grabs on with his claws and rips your back up. It sounds horrible and I need definite further clarification, paint me a clear picture for my mind's eye. Define the damage done to the human as well. I can really get into requirements for full understanding of things.

Whoppo's sisters are so nice, there are 3 of them and they are the most friendliest and gentlest gals. THey are my pals. Maybe that is why Whoppo hates me so much. I have been digging up clumps of buttercups alongside the bee's ditch for the past while and the 3 Muscovy ducks are always about 6 inches from my pitchfork, just awaiting the turning of the earth to get the worms and bugs. They are almost in the way, but I have so much fun digging up the mucky muck soil for them. It is always full of worms.

It is so funny. Girl, who is the most friendly, every time she sees me grab the pitchfork, she is the first one there, she makes a beeline straight for what I am doing, makes those sweet little sounds that the Muscovy ducks make. That kind of peeping, quiet, sweet girls. I immediately turn a swath of earth over for her, that is her reward for loving me so much (note how I let the critters take on those human emotions? they don't really love me, they just love what I am doing, but I will pretend they are my friends that love me like there was no tomorrow, hee, hee). Pepper is also quite friendly too, but not as much as girl. Cookie is a little more leary, she is a little more aggressive too, not bad, but she quite often has her head feathers ruffled up straight, like Whoppo does, the other two girls always have the feathers flat against their head, never seen that ruffle on them. I bet that Cookie would be an extremely protective mother.

I think that Pepper is going to go broody soon too. She is laying an egg every day and sits for a fairly long time. I have been gathering them and when she goes broody I will give them all to her. Cookie and Girl are not laying eggs yet. Faya, the older gal from last year is sitting on 14 eggs, she has been sitting for about a week now, so in another 3 weeks, more babies.

I have about 35 Muscovy eggs in the incubator and about the same of the chicken eggs, so yep, we got lots o' babies comin' too.

The turkeys hatched out 10 of about 20 eggs and one chicken egg, when they got off the nest. My Neice has two from the hatching that she is raising, plus the two Muscovy babies, so cute.

When the turkey hens were not sitting on the eggs anymore, I cleaned out their nest box for them, man was it stinkkkkkeeeeeee!!!!! There were about 10 eggs of turkey and hens in there and I put them in the incubator. One hatched out yesterday and maybe more will or will not hatch. My neice took that one too, so now she has three that she has in her bedroom, funnneeee. We will see.

When one turkey went broody, the other hen didn't go broody for about 5 days, then they both sat on the eggs. When Abigail got off the eggs for good, so did Madeline, so that meant that there were probably at least 5 eggs laid that need a few more days incubation.

What is wrong with me? I just wanted to make a simple reply to this post because I have other posts to look at and read and look what I have done. I have rambled and rambled and now it is getting close to the time when I have to get the kids all off and ready for school, eeeks, look what I have done to my song, ma!!!! Have the best of this beautiful, most glorious day, where our sun is shinin'. Cindi

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There are strange things done in the midnight sun by the men who moil for gold. The Arctic trails have their secret tales that would make your blood run cold. The Northern Lights have seen queer sights, but the queerest they ever did see, what the night on the marge of Lake Lebarge, I cremated Sam McGee. Robert Service

They will not go back to the nest once they get off with babies in tow so you did good to take them. I would have candeled them to make sure there was no rotten ones first or smelled each egg to make sure they were not a bomb waiting to explode. Ever try to clean out of an incubator exploded rotten egg? Not a fun thing to do and a very very smelly one for a fact. Cindi If I were you I would get some hatching eggs in a trade and hatch your new drake from there. For one you will have diversity in the gene pool as well as the temper and nastyness is a genetic factor which sounds like only hits the male side of the line. If I could send you some of mine I would but I cant. Dang why you so far lol. I have not had the muscovy flogg me only one turkey tom and one rooster both of which are gone gone gone. they would wait till you turned your back and then jump on you and hit you with there spurs and claws. The turkey being so big hurt because he could jump and could reach as high as my back. They jump up with there feet right in front of them and go at you with there spurs. Thankfully the rest of my boys are all gentle and I de spur them when it is needed which is a very easy process which grows back but slowly. They should not be allowed to grow so big that the rooster has to walk funny just to get past his spurs. If you want to know how to do it just let me know. I will try to get on earlier to the board and tell you how. Or if I can ever get my other laptop fixed I will be able to do it in chat via voice as it is easier for me to tell you rather then type it. Anyway gotta go to bed have a good night

Angi

And JP I am serious. Maybe this fall when I start processing some if you pay for shipping via overnight express I will ship you one just for the shipping. I have those stryofoam chests that Omaha Steaks come in that I could ship a frozen one in with lost of frozen ice things. Think about it and if it is something that you might would like to do. And I will grow one out for you.

Since the eggs went in the incubator 2 have hatched out. One each day, there are four more turkey eggs, so I anticipate they will hatch too. I just hope to heavens above that they do not explode. It would seem that Madeline didn't go broody until 5 days after Abigail. So she continued to lay for 5 days I guess. That would mean that is the eggs are viable they will hatch out for another 3 days. Hold on....I am going to go look right now at the incubator and see if one has started to crack the egg, if it hasn't this AM, I will remove the eggs. There are 6 chicken eggs in there too, I think that I will remove those 6. I have two racks of ducks and chickens eggs incubating in there and I wouldn't want these eggs to explode their crap on the eggs. These eggs have a bad smell anyways because they were in the nest box and had some ucky gunk on parts of them. I will be glad to get them out of my basement kitchen, eeks, what stinky things are in this world.....hold on....back in a minute..OK.

It seems that when the other two turkey eggs hatched out they both began about 7:00. This one is rocking slightly just like the other two did, so I think it is going to start to hatch this AM. We'll see. There is 5 more turkey eggs to hatch. I don't have a candler and am too busy to make one, I remember there was talk about how to do it, but I am too lazy right at this moment to check it out (that is me, too much to do).

So, tell me. How long would you say before an egg would blow up? That would be a real bummer, I know the smell of rotten eggs. I remember one time last summer I broke an egg open that didn't hatch out, and holy smokin' carumba!!! What a stench from the worst stench you could possibly ever imagine, simply gross!!!

The two that hatched from the incubator look very much the same as Madeline, she is the Blue Slate. They are the only ones that look like that so far, so I guess all the rest might be her eggs. Abigail is the bluex (with what I am not sure, could be a Bourbon Red or Bronze Heritage, I might have known when I first got her, but can't remember and again, am too lazy to see if I ever posted what she was, hee, hee).

We put the two incubated poults in with the mothers and they ran right underneath their bodies. They had gone into a warm pen with the ducklings and poult my Neice has in her room. I am going to post a cute picture of that today. Talkin' to ya. Beautiful and most wonderful day, lovin' our wonderful lives. Cindi

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There are strange things done in the midnight sun by the men who moil for gold. The Arctic trails have their secret tales that would make your blood run cold. The Northern Lights have seen queer sights, but the queerest they ever did see, what the night on the marge of Lake Lebarge, I cremated Sam McGee. Robert Service

Angi: "And JP I am serious. Maybe this fall when I start processing some if you pay for shipping via overnight express I will ship you one just for the shipping. I have those stryofoam chests that Omaha Steaks come in that I could ship a frozen one in with lost of frozen ice things. Think about it and if it is something that you might would like to do. And I will grow one out for you."

Me: Oh, Angi thank you so much for the offer. (Now don't tell Cindi, but we have no shortage of ducks here, so stealing one/I mean getting one is not a big deal) Besides, you know life wouldn't be the same if I couldn't torture Cindi about whoppo and other bad birds she will no doubt have in her future! :-D

You have ducks there, but.....do you have the Muscovy breed? You ain't seen nuthin' until you taste this breed, you can't compare it to other duck, just not the same. Try one of Angi's and you will never turn back. You will have to buy a farm so you can raise this breed to have on your dinner table.

We have 11 that are about 2 weeks old now. We have another 14 that Faya is sitting on and then there are about 35 in the incubator, so we have duck, duck, duck, they love to play in the muck, muck, muck.....beautiful, most beautiful day. Cindi

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There are strange things done in the midnight sun by the men who moil for gold. The Arctic trails have their secret tales that would make your blood run cold. The Northern Lights have seen queer sights, but the queerest they ever did see, what the night on the marge of Lake Lebarge, I cremated Sam McGee. Robert Service

You have ducks there, but.....do you have the Muscovy breed? You ain't seen nuthin' until you taste this breed, you can't compare it to other duck, just not the same. Try one of Angi's and you will never turn back. You will have to buy a farm so you can raise this breed to have on your dinner table.

We have 11 that are about 2 weeks old now. We have another 14 that Faya is sitting on and then there are about 35 in the incubator, so we have duck, duck, duck, they love to play in the muck, muck, muck.....beautiful, most beautiful day. Cindi

We have lots of Muscovys here Cindi, I just prefer the Canadian ones!! :-D They are bad birds that need proper punishment and a good roasting bad. Don't forget those sweet onions!!!